


god save the king

by volunteer_of_hufflepuff



Series: looking through a shattered telescope at another universe [6]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: 3x15 coda, Angst, Gen, POV Outsider, introspective fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22332946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volunteer_of_hufflepuff/pseuds/volunteer_of_hufflepuff
Summary: Alec Lightwood's cry for help did not go unanswered that dreadful night Magnus Bane collapsed in his office: a medic, Lucy, tries to pick up the shards of his heart through keeping Magnus alive.Or: a 3x15 coda, filling the space of Magnus' collapse to Catarina's appearance, with a side of musings from an Institute Personnel on the man that Alec Lightwood has become, and the child he left behind.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: looking through a shattered telescope at another universe [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1279595
Comments: 2
Kudos: 87





	god save the king

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was lovely to write, and I want to thank sugarandspace for betaing this for me!
> 
> hope you enjoy! I like outsider pov fics, and I hope you do too!

The infirmary is still as the clock ticks to the hour, shifting the world deeper into the day: night must have fallen by now, but inside the Institute, it is impossible to tell.

Lucy sighs, peeling off her gloves.

These last few months have felt like an eternity. With the rise of Valentine - of war - came numerous medical emergencies: and, of course, New York was the hub of it all.

Since Clarissa Fairchild killed her father, it feels like Lucy’s life is returning to some semblance of normality, if that can even be found in a life as a Shadowhunter.

Though with the sighting of an unfamiliar demon, hopping around New York and possessing the sweetest mundanes, it seems like her work will be picking up again shortly.

Which isn’t great, but her shift is almost over - she’s waiting for Michael, and then she can escape this world for a night. With Nicole, to a restaurant tucked away in an alley of Brooklyn, where they can be as anonymous as they please. It feels odd that pulling endless strings and lying to sneak off underneath the cover of darkness are things of the past - now, with a gay leader, she and Nicole can date openly.

Lucy is pulled out of her thoughts when Michael walks into the room, his black combat boots silent against the tiled floor.

“Evening,” Michael says.

It should be a quiet night tonight: there are no big patrols planned, and they are no longer at war, so he is the only one rostered on the night shift.

“Evening, Michael,” Lucy replies, throwing her gloves into the bin. 

Michael - who lost his wife in Valentine’s attack on the Institute, who is quiet and pedantic and reserved - nods, pulling on his scrubs. “Enjoy your date.”

Lucy stops walking, for a second. “Thank you,” she says as she closes the infirmary’s door.

She thinks she will have a cup of tea before she gets dressed for her date. Not as if she will be wearing thick red lipstick and blinding highlight tonight - things that she would have to do after - but because it’s quicker that way, to make her tea and drink it on her way back to her room.

And being a Shadowhunter is, after all, all about efficiency.

Lucy and Nicole are in their forties, anyway, and have been dating for over twenty years. A blue checkered blouse and a grey skirt will do: Lucy can’t be bothered with make-up.

She’s turning the corner into the hallway where Alec Lightwood’s office is tucked away when a hacking, spluttering cough shatters the silence.

Then, almost immediately, there is a cry.

“Medic! Somebody get help!”

It’s Alec Lightwood.

Lucy thinks of the latest gossip. How Magnus Bane had given up his magic and immortality so that he could win in the battle against Lilith. How he now resided at the Institute, after losing his home to Lorenzo Rey, the new and much more disliked High Warlock of Brooklyn, for merely a taste of his magic.

How he was ruthless, how he would do anything to win.

“Someone get help!” 

She runs up to the door. Pulls it open.

“Mr Lightwood,” she says, and then she stops.

It’s obvious what’s wrong.

There are tears falling from Alec’s eyes onto Magnus Bane - Magnus Bane, who is whispered about behind the closed doors of the Institute, in equal measures of fear and awe -, who is lying unconscious on the ground, blood smeared against his face and his chest.

Lucy isn’t an expert on warlocks, but she thinks she knows what this is - rejection of a magic transplant. She had been reading a report about it the other day, in the interest of their improving Downworld relations.

Alec’s hands are pushing up and down on Magnus’ chest.

“I think we need an expert in warlock healing for this,” is what she first says. No point in waiting around, wasting time. “Catarina Loss should do.”

Lucy slips out her phone, dialling Catarina’s number.

“Make sure he’s breathing,” is what she says as her phone rings, to fill this frantic silence. “Try to stem the bleeding.”

Alec hasn’t stopped CPR, hasn’t stopped murmuring pleas of salvation and declarations of love. His face has been twisted by terror: impossibly pale, lips bitten to shreds. 

The phone stops ringing before Lucy teeters beyond the border of professionalism and starts to offer condolences to Alec.

Who has always been stoic, an unmovable pillar of determination and perseverance. 

A pillar that has now crumbled, and won’t appreciate being caught so vividly in a moment of vulnerability.

“Catarina Loss,” Lucy says, “on the behalf of the New York Institute, as a medic, I request your assistance immediately. It’s Magnus Bane - he’s collapsed and is currently unconscious in Alec Lightwood’s office.”

Warlocks with clearance are allowed to portal directly into the infirmary for exactly this reason. It’s a new implementation: but Alec had argued that, in times of crisis, seconds could be the divider between life and death.

“Oh,” Catarina says, “of course, I’ll come straight away.”

The phone beeps, the line cut off abruptly: there was this crestfallen, downtrodden edge to Catarina’s voice that makes Lucy wonder if Catarina Loss and Magnus Bane are friends.

“Help should be here soon,” she says to Alec, who now looks like he has never spent a day in the sun. “Do you need me to take over?”

Alec shakes his head. Tears glitter on his face. “No, thank you, Lucy. I’m not tired.”

His hands are trembling. But Lucy doesn’t think they betray his lack of honesty - rather, they betray his fear.

Lucy remembers when Alec Lightwood was a little boy, who would run about the Institute and sit on high-backed chairs and ask a million questions about how the Institute ticked. It never was long before Maryse Lightwood, harried but stern, walked in on high-heeled black boots to take her son away. But he still chatted away cheerfully, even as his mother took him away from the working world of Shadowhunters to sketch runes in crayon next to his sister’s playpen.

She wonders what happened to that little boy, who had been as carefree as possible in a dangerous and deadly world.

He is 23 years old, and already he has fought too many battles - now, his lover is lying at death’s door.

“If you are sure.”

The rise and fall of Magnus Bane’s chest is shallow.

Lucy wonders how it is that everything can change in an instance: wonders if Magnus Bane will live another day: wonders if Alec Lightwood would survive it.

The door clicks, cleaving her thoughts away as if with an adamas blade, throwing her back into a brutal reality, and Catarina Loss walks inside.

Whose weariness evaporates once she notices Magnus Bane lying motionless on the ground. She rushes to him, dropping down to the ground like she is a flash of lightning.

Lucy thinks that Magnus Bane and Catarina Loss must be friends.

“How long has he been like this?” Catarina asks. Her hands twitch, like she is battling the urge to do anything, everything.

Alec, his eyes red and raw, doesn’t stop his hands, which move up and down with a steady beat. “I don’t know - a minute, maybe more? All I know is that it’s felt like an eternity.”

“It’s been about 90 seconds since I heard Mr Lightwood ask for help,” Lucy cuts in.

Blue wisps of magic starts to flow from Catarina’s hands. “Alright,” she mutters, “I should be able to stop the bleeding and keep him breathing. Ms Whitehall, I don’t think there is anything you can do to help here - but if you could prepare a bed and everything else, that would be great.”

“Of course, Ms Loss.” 

They have worked together several times before this awful night: this efficiency and calm demeanour are what makes working with Catarina so pleasant.

Hopefully, this isn’t another one of the tragedies that have befallen the Institute so often since Valentine’s second rise.

Lucy walks back to the infirmary.

There will be no tea for her tonight; nor a magical date, if luck continues down its rough and shaky course.

Lucy opens the door of the infirmary. “Magnus Bane has collapsed,” she says to Michael, who had been wiping down one of their beds and who looks up at her with the dawning expression of shock, “Help me prepare, will you?”

She slips on her gloves.

And the night - now marred with tragedy - ticks on.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr ](https://mirrorofliterature.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/mirroroflit)
> 
> comments and kudos and whatnot are all seen and appreciated!


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